Tigers off to 3-0 start in Colonial Athletic Association and are just two games behind league leader Delaware

January 21, 2014|By Edward Lee | The Baltimore Sun

The last time the Towson men's basketball team strung together five consecutive wins was the 2000-01 campaign when the Tigers eventually finished 12-17 overall and 7-11 in America East.

This year's team is hoping for a different ending after racking up five straight victories, including triumphs over Colonial Athletic Association rivals UNC Wilmington, Drexel and the College of Charleston. Coach Pat Skerry said he fully recognizes the difficulty of collecting wins in the league.

“It’s just the most competitive conference in the country when it comes to the percentage of close games,” he said Tuesday morning during a conference call arranged by the CAA. “The players are aware of that, and we’ve told them that. We’re big Ken Pom guys. We’ve hammered them with that. So every night is going to be a war. It’s conference play. I told them yesterday that we’ve got the defending conference champs [in Northeastern] here tomorrow night and we’ve never beaten them since we’ve been here, and it’s going to be a tough, hard-fought game. It’s good to win five in a row. I’d like it if we could find a way to win another five in a row.”

The Tigers (12-6 overall and 3-0 in the league) sit in second place in the league but trail Delaware (13-7, 5-0) by two games. Skerry said he's not too concerned about the gap.

“It’s really early,” he said. “I think the thing that worries me is, you’ve got to go play unfortunately a lot of these good teams again, which you never like. It’s really early in conference play. Delaware is outstanding. Their talent level is outstanding, but we know how good they are. I think the tough thing about this league from a coaching standpoint is legitimately there are six or seven teams that can beat you any night.”

Towson will get a chance to close the distance with the Blue Hens by playing host to Northeastern, which advanced to the conference tournament final last March. The Huskies are 5-14 overall and 2-3 in the league, but 12 of their 14 losses have been decided by single digits.

“We know they can absolutely beat us,” Skerry said of Northeastern. “That’s not even debatable. They’ve played the hardest strength of schedule, one of the best in the country. We’re talking about playing some tough teams on the road. They play tough teams at home, neutral and the road. They play them everywhere. That was an insane schedule, and you can see how it’s prepared them for the league. They’ve been in every game. A couple they won and a couple they could’ve won.”